Darren Hare thanks Academy staff for their hard work as Gills are awarded category three status following a successful audit
Darren Hare has paid tribute to the Academy staff at the club who have helped Gills to achieve category three status.Darren revealed last week that the club’s academy audit earlier in the year was successful, and he praised the staff behind the scenes who all contributed to achieving the desired status.
He said: “I was absolutely delighted when I found out, we were a little bit nervous but we knew we had a good setup, a good Centre of Excellence and our schoolboy programme is run very efficiently.
“There are certain criteria you have to get in place and things we have to provide our younger players. All of that costs money and we have invested very well and have some great staff.
“Bryan Bull put together 95% of the Academy Performance Plan which was 330 pages thick. He needs to be appreciated and thanked; Kelly our Secretary has done a terrific job. Rob Peck, our Foundation Phase Coach, has done a lot of work too.
“Everybody from top to bottom made a contribution.
“We are assessed on nine categories and are accrued points. The maximum we could get was 64 and we came out with 59 which, I’m told, puts us in the top five of the category three clubs in the country which adds more credibility to our result.
“My hats go off to all the staff – Mark Patterson and Steve Lovell too, it was a team effort and even the Chairman and Manager Peter Taylor were interviewed for it.
“The Chairman even came with me to London for the Audit review interview and it was good to have his support. Let’s not forget that he invests on behalf of the club about £130,000 into our youth programme.”